The Top 10 Ways to Tell if Your Website Sucks

Thanks to the inter-web, we can do some pretty nifty things to promote our businesses and our personal agendas that could never before be effectively shared with the rest of the world. One of these tools happens to be the trusty little website. It’s sort of a place where you can stuff all the info you want others to find out about you and your business without having to explain it to someone each time they visit. But there actually is an art to building an effective website. Yours, by the way, might suck. Here’s how to tell.

Maybe You Are Colorblind
Sure, it may have sounded like a great idea at the time but yellow text on a brown background is going to cause a lot of headaches. We’re not just talking technical ones, either. Red on green is also one of those combinations that will repel repeat visits to your website in much the same way that kryptonite cripples the Man of Steel. Have you ever noticed why books are printed with black on white? It has to do with making the pages easy to read. Get it?

You Can’t Right
In case you didn’t know this part, websites are supposed to give some kind of value to those who visit it. The value comes from stupendous written content. Seriously. People are going to visit your website intent on reading stuff. If your stuff comes across like it was written by your 4-year old niece or by someone you hired online who lives in a foreign country you’ve never heard of, your website is going to well, suffer a sloe def. A ded websight is just plane dum.

You Don’t Understand SEO
If you think WordPress themes are things that come out of a kitchen utensil that squeezes the life out of something, you are in serious trouble. SEO is actually a fancy way of saying search engine optimization. What you need to do is construct your website in such a way that it attracts search engines. They are your friends but if you don’t know what you are doing, you’re almost better off not inviting the search engines to the party. A professional web designer can fix this for you.

You Have A Stupid URL
Admittedly, most of the good website addresses are taken, so we can’t entirely fault you for this, but you could have put some extra thought into the URL you registered. Yes, we get it. Your business name is Lil’s Hit House and you sell old records but your website address is www.lilshithouse.com. Mind you, it is better than that other one of yours, www.getyouroldrecordshereatagoodpricewhileyoucan.com. Somebody say it isn’t so?

You Have A Website About ?
It’s pretty cool to cover a ton of different niches in a website. Well, if that website is actually a blog and your focus is writing about a ton of different niches. However, if you are trying to develop an eCommerce website you may want to hone it down to stuff that relates to the other stuff in your website. It’s what the smart Georgia web design people like to refer to as a theme. It ties everything together in a neat package. Relevance is important. Even if you don’t think it is.

You Like Flashy Things
Sure, flashing lights on emergency vehicles attract attention. That’s kinda what their purpose is. However, when you fill each and every pageour website with flashing messages and ads that make it look like a normal day on the Stock Market Channel, all you do is confuse people. They can’t see anything on your website because of all the flashing going on. If your goal is to confuse people so they will leave your website alone, then you nailed it. Nicely done.

You Think Mobile-Friendly Is Having A Full Tank Of Gas
Clearly you’ve spent a couple of bucks on the design of your weband it shows. But what about those nutty kids with their fancy internet phones? You may want them to be able to find and then get lost somewhere inside your website. This means that your website has to be fully responsive. That technically means it has to have much more than a pulse. To reach people who cruise the ‘net on their phone, your website has to work on their device – that’s their phone.

You Think eCommerce Is Like An eCigarette
There’s nothing fake about eCommerce. In fact, eCommerce websites are one way to make a bag of money without the hassle of opening up a storefront location downtown and keeping regular hours. Plus, an eCommerce website gives you the option of being able to sell stuff online. Sure, you probably already use eBay and Facebook for that but your own eCommerce website would be awesome…if you have something worthwhile to sell.

You Use Windows 98
C’mon, you’ve got to be kidding? In order to at least stay sort of near the loop, you have to have equipment that is current enough to keep up. The last thing you need is to constantly have to play catch up as you attempt to get in the loop you’ve been living outside of with outdated technology. You may as well keep your dial up internet connection while you’re at it. You can hire someone to build your website, but you still need to be able to access it yourself to see it.

You Create a Top 10 List and Only List Nine Items
Ok this one’s on me.

Have We Made Our Point Yet?

We believe every business should have a website but those websites need to have some standards. If your website sucks get in touch with us and we’ll help you get it straightened out.